Rumor Mill Declares Peter Capaldi New Frontrunner for 12th Doctor in Doctor Who

Okay, guys, we know, no one really has any idea who will the new face of Doctor Who will be until BBC airs that announcement on Sunday, but of course we’re still going to keep wildly speculating. We’re fans. That’s what we do. And I don’t know, The Hour‘s Peter Capaldi is looking pretty good right now.

Previously actor Rory Kinnear was the favorite to replace Matt Smith in weird gambling circles. However, after Kinnear was cast in an ITV role that is scheduled to film around the same time as Who does — and after admitting that he had never even watched an episode of the show, not even as a kid — he’s dropped to 4th place behind Capaldi, Daniel Rigby, and Ben Daniels, all of whom, you will no doubt note, are white dudes. Okay. You already know how we feel about that. Moving on.

While Capaldi is certainly an unknown in comparison to the famous names we threw around in our wish list a few months back, he had a part in the Tennant-era episode “The Fires of Pompeii,” andhas played recurring characters in both The Hour and The Thick of It. In the latter, a comedy about British government, he says wonderful foul-mouthed (and clearly NSFW) things like the below:

Again, you all know I was gunning for something a little more…unexpected, shall we say. But I’m more than willing to give Capaldi a shot, especially if they let him keep the Glasgow accent. An older, ill-tempered Scottish bloke might be a refreshing change of pace for Doctor Who fans. Though somehow, all the swearing really, really doesn’t seem to fit.